Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1985 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
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We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1985 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s April 12, 1985, and we’re off to see Cat’s Eye, Fraternity Vacation, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and Ladyhawke.
Cat’s Eye
Every single thing Stephen King ever wrote being turned into a film continues, even when it doesn’t make sense.
Cat’s Eye follows a stray cat crossing through multiple stories as it tries to make its way to a little girl (Drew Barrymore) who is in danger from a little troll who wants to steal her life essence. First he crosses through an intense anti-smoking program that tortures people to make sure you quit. Then it crosses paths with a man bent on killing his wife’s lover. And, finally, he makes it to Barrymore to help her defeat the troll.
This movie feels like a pilot for a new anthology series like Tales From the Crypt. The problem is, the stories are just not that engaging. Each of the stories feel very short-changed by the half-hour format. The first story, “Quitters, Inc.” in particular feels messy and half-finished. What the company gets out of torturing people in this way is never explained and leaves for a very incomplete narrative.
This movie feels like nothing more than a cash grab based on King’s popularity at the time, and a very haphazard one at that.
Fraternity Vacation
Color me surprised, but I actually didn’t hate a 1980s sex comedy.
Wendell Tvedt (Stephen Geoffreys) is your typical nerd who is trying desperately to fit in. Thanks to his family’s money, a fraternity has taken him under their wing, although it’s all to better their frat house. He sets off on Spring Break with Larry ‘Mother’ Tucker (Tim Robbins) and J.C. Springer (Matt McCoy) with a mission from Wendell’s dad: Get him to lose his virginity and they got a hot tub for the frat house.
Make no mistake, the movie is silly, and incredibly predictable, but I got some genuine laughs out of it. Something that has been missing from most of these 80s sex comedies.
If you feel as though you must experience at least one of these to fill a gap in your 80s education, this may be the one. Yes, it has senseless nudity. But the men in the movie actually come out of it better people than where they started.
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
Despite being named for the song, and the song playing in the trailer, and twice the film. they are all covers and Cyndi Lauper never sings in the film. That pretty much sets the tone here.
Janey Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker) has just moved to town following her Dad retiring from the Army. The family is strict and wants Janey to focus on school and not date, but all she wants to do is appear on Dance TV. She meets wildchild Lynne Stone (Helen Hunt), and the two scheme their way into being on the show. And along the way, Janey falls for Jeff Malene (Lee Montgomery), doing just about everything her family isn’t for.
This film tries so hard to cash in on the popularity of Cyndi Lauper, and there are a slew of legal reasons why they couldn’t. And it made for a big distraction as you watch the film. You constantly keep asking yourself why this is being done the way it is.
The plot is nonsense. The ‘romance’ ham-fisted. It’s an ugly attempt to cash in on popularity of something they couldn’t even get the rights to.
Ladyhawke
Sword and sorcery films were typically such half-hearted affairs in the 1980s – Conan the Barbarian not withstanding – and this one really goes for something different and unique.
Phillipe Gaston (Matthew Broderick) escape the prison of Aquila run by an evil bishop, and on the run he encounters Etienne of Navarre (Rutger Hauer), the former Captain of the Guard of Aquila. It takes a while, but you learn that he and his love, Isabeau of Anjou (Michelle Pfeiffer), were cursed by the bishop: By day she is a hawk, and by night he is a wolf. The idea is that they can never be together in human form. The only solution is to find a way to break the curse.
The film has some definite pacing issues (it takes far too long to get to the explanation of the curse), and the music, while unique, can be a bit distracting at times. But the thing is, I enjoyed the film. Despite my quibbles with it, it’s a sweeping romance with a unique hook that keeps you engaged throughout. They put some interesting hurdles in front of our protagonists and make it far more engaging than most fantasy films.
It’s unique and worth the journey.
1985 Movie Reviews will return on April 19, 2025, with The Company of Wolves, Lily in Love, and Moving Violations.
